These days the search for success is totally connected to statistics – making a mockery of the whole notion of a true professional work.

It’s a common preconception that a successful artist is one who has reached wide public recognition and financial success. The majority forgets, however, that beyond the artists in the hit parades there are others who are ‘translating’ the zeitgeist of a different and more select public.

The objective of these artists isn’t to reach a widely dispersed audience, but rather a more select and ‘conscious’ public.

As Coltrane once said, “Amongst the forces that surround us I want to face the forces of opposition. I want the force that is truth forever.”

In reality, musicians are subject to constant pressures trying to attract them to a more facile and commodious work. Coltrane is an example of non-concession to the facile. He prefers instead to internalise a slow and punishing route to reach the extremes of artistic being.

The Brazilian musician has arrived at this point triumphant over various stages of his evolution. An important landmark today is interest that the great names in music have in recording with our musicians. This growing interest gives us a greater opportunity of reaching a level of international prestige that can only bring rewards for us at home. Here, the opportunities are still rare for a soloist to showcase his talents. When these chances do come, the musician is often misunderstood despite his attempts to reconcile Brazilian music with music of an international reach.

Because of this, the musician becomes evermore disbelieving and even goes as far as to stop speaking of music altogether. He ends up being drawn ever closer to a kind of work which doesn’t correspond to his own ideas.

This is what one senses when talking to musicians around and about. In the streets, over a ‘cafezinho’ or two, one can perceive how much the young musicians are anxious to hear a soloist they can categorise. Rarely does the opportunity to play on TV broadcasts exist. There is an initiative on the part of the government to support a greater promotion of Brazilian music and I have participated in some of these initiatives involving the Radio Ministério de Educação (Radio MEC). However, the general public still isn’t accustomed to paying attention to an instrumental solo or a vocalist of the highest calibre: the programmes are broadcast into an atmosphere so raucous that it doesn’t allow for the more elaborate numbers to be played. There will be some who suggest that, if he is to be understood, the musician must make some kind of concession to this public. When they asked the trumpeter Waldir de Barros why musicians don’t sing, he replied, ‘for the same reason singers don’t play!’

The conscious artist, who day by day seeks to perfect his knowledge, fatally distances himself from the average taste. Sometimes he doesn’t even know how to perform the concession that’s asked of him.

Let’s remember here the words of the great North American composer Charles Ives – “I don’t know how to compose for lazy ears’’.

From my experience of this whole subject I carry with me the following thoughts and opinions of musicians who confront the same aesthetic problems.

Edison Machado
The Brazilian musician must lose his vanity and demonstrate more solidarity with his fellow artists. He must be open to understanding his own environment and the world within himself. I want to listen and learn although I have no chance
to do so.

Cipó
I’m hip to the young sound, albeit without the seemingly necessary shouting, when there is space for the musician to solo. I have been really fired up by some of the instrumental music programmes I have seen on TV.

Casé
I’m going to change my profession (and open a little bar). I’m not interested in the calls for me to work abroad. I’m on good form, but I have no chance to express myself musically. In spite of this, I don’t want to abandon this country.

Leonardo Luz
Instrumental music is more difficult to be understood – the sound is abstract. That’s why the general public feels the necessity of lyrics to grab hold of and hang on to – it’s something more concrete.

Nelson de Macedo
The Brazilian musician is a victim of the diabolic trinity against which he must constantly fight: the lack of sufficient rehearsal, poorly paid work and a lack of internal and external exchange. To these negatives he must add the lack of a mainstream audience.

We leave you here with this motto: ‘Love is Music’

Fernando Lobo
Paulo Moura’s most recent release is this LP ‘Fibra’, in which the notable instrumentalist performs in an even more original style. This is a standout album, not just for the beauty of Paulo Moura’s interpretation but also for the daring arrangements that he and Wagner Tiso have created. At the same time as Paulo Moura releases this record in Brazil, the label Tangerine is releasing his previous LP, ‘Mensagem’, in the United States.